Ludlamshöhle Ensemble, consisting of PC faculty members Jim and Karen Buckland, will perform a recital on Monday, March 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Edmunds Hall. The recital will feature nineteenth-century works performed on period guitars and piano. The recital is open to the public.

Dr. James Buckland, guitar, is an adjunct professor of music at Presbyterian College. He received his training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Canada, the University of Toronto, the University of Akron, and the University of South Carolina. Buckland was the first guitarist to graduate from USC with the doctor of musical arts degree in performance. His doctoral research paper on the nineteenth-century terz guitar earned him the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Graduate Endeavors.

Buckland also graduated with honors from the Guitar Institute of Technology jazz program in Hollywood, CA. He conducted post-doctoral research on nineteenth-century performance practice in cooperation with Paolo Pugliese, Claudio Maccari, and the Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan. Buckland is co-founder of Ludlamshöhle, a chamber ensemble dedicated to nineteenth-century music.

Unique in his field, Buckland is also a luthier. He builds guitars primarily in the nineteenth-century style, using original tools, materials, and techniques. Buckland follows the work of Fabricatore, Guadagnini, and Stauffer. Also a guest clinician, Buckland has lectured and/or performed at the Guitar Foundation of America Convention, the Great Lakes Guitar Festival, the Symposium on Guitar and Improvisation, and the Guild of American Luthiers Convention. Buckland premiered his reconstruction of the Second Concerto, Op. 36, for Terz Guitar and String Orchestra by Mauro Giuliani with Sinfonia de Camera conducted by Ian Hobson. The performance was featured in a broadcast on Illinois Public Radio.

Buckland is an active researcher too. His writings have appeared regularly in American Lutherie, the journal of the Guild of American Luthiers. Buckland was also cited in The King’s Guitarist: The Life and Times of Marco Aurelio Zani de Ferranti (1801-1878) by Marcus Van de Cruys. Homunculus (Wijnegem, Belgium, 2005).

Buckland is one of a few guitarists in the world who performs on both the terz guitar and the conventional concert guitar. His CD, “Sonatas and Fantasias for Guitar,” has won critical acclaim. EarlyRomanticGuitar calls the CD “a rare and exceptional recording…very operative influence with blistering arpeggios and cadenzas. Top notch. Highly recommended.”

Dr. Karen Wisser Buckland, pianist, is a professor of music and the director of keyboard studies at PC as well as the artistic director of the annual PC Piano Clinic. She earned a bachelor of music degree in piano performance from Mansfield University. In addition, she earned a master of music degree and a doctor of musical arts degree in piano pedagogy from the University of South Carolina. Her teachers include Raymond Dudley, John Adams, William Goode, and Max Camp.

Buckland is active as a soloist and collaborator, adjudicator, and guest lecturer. She has performed throughout the southeast, Pennsylvania, Washington, Alaska, Nevada, and Canada. Buckland presented a lecture, Piano Techniques and Effects in Piano Music: An Historical Approach to Pedaling at the Northern Nevada Music Teachers Association 2017 May meeting and the musical score “Teach an Inch, Learn a Mile” at the 2016 South Carolina Music Educators Association conference.

Buckland is a 2017 recipient of the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award in Who’s Who, a member of the National Association for Music Education and the South Carolina Music Educators Association (newly elected position of President of the Piano Division), the Music Teachers National Association and the South Carolina Music Teacher Association, and the Guild of American Organists. She is the organist and pianist at First Presbyterian Church in Clinton, S.C.